


Brothers

by Queen_Kit



Series: Twinnish: Maul Edition [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Clones, GFY, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 13:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7641931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_Kit/pseuds/Queen_Kit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There would be other people who became a part of their family, but before everything else they were brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brothers

**Author's Note:**

> *Mentions of Kaminoan Experimentation and general horribleness that comes with that.  
> Focusing on characters as people rather than clinical as before.  
> You've been warned.

There is more to this family than brothers.  There is a father, there is an uncle, there is a commander who is sometimes like a sister, there is a high general who sometimes deans to be kinder than their makers, there is a general who stayed with them awhile full of a hidden fire, a Jedi Master with long brown hair who almost tamed the wild.

But before everything else, there were brothers.

\---

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3  
Project Year 3 - Month 2**

They weren’t the first to be born, but they were the first to survive.  They set the bar for the most important part of every clone’s life.  Survival was the measuring stick by which they would judge themselves.  The longer they survived, the more things they faced without losing their lives, the stronger they would become.

But right now, none of that mattered.

They were two young boys shivering and alone.  Three months ago they were barely Two years old.  Two months ago they were nearly dead, their hearts unable to take the strain.  Now after a month in a bacta to keep them alive, they were Fourteen years old.  They for days they clung to each other with everything they had in every moment that they weren’t being poked and prodded to make sure that they were recovering.

They should become stronger, but the reaction to the growth formula had been so severe they would never have to go back there again.  Never have to go back to where their brothers had died.

They had felt it, could still feel it, the death that surrounded them.  In the tanks every unconscious breath had been filled with the distress of the ones who had come before.  In an indescribable way they had felt their other brothers die.  It was the closest clones 0-81 and 1-84 would ever come to the force.

\--

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3  
Project Year 3 - Month 5**

0-81 was the first person that the 0-9s ever saw who looked like them; older, but like them.  He had the dark hair that they had, the shorter neck, the warmer eyes.  0-81 was the seven year old boys’ favorite play-mate and teacher.  Every moment he had that wasn’t consumed by learning his own lessons he was there for them, and they loved it.

They knew there was another one, but 0-84 didn’t really stay near them.  He was only there when the doctors were poking at them. He always looked sad when he saw them.  0-81 told them that they were their brothers.  The 0-9s didn’t really know what brothers were at first, but they would learn.

\--

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3 & 674-5  
Project Year 3 - Month 7/8**

0-84 feels ill as he helps their creators guide a batch of toddlers into the growth tanks. They didn’t even finish with the Zeros before they started other batches.  And he hadn’t known, he _hadn’t known_. He should have known.  There was too much death in this room for it to have been only the zeros.

He tells his group-mate that much at least, but there are secrets that 0-84 still keeps.  He knows that if these children survive that they will have to go back.  They are so slowly grown there is no choice.  Their creators intend to ensure that these children will be able to grow again.  They’ll have to go back to the sad and the dark and the death.  And there is nothing he can do about it.  He is only two years old, ‘though he looks fifteen.

He is too small a cog in this machine despite everything he has learned.

He’s just spent an hour of his time helping five newly seven clones out of the tanks so that these tiny ones can go in.  He’s helped his little brothers learn how to stand again with newly acquired height and older minds.  He feels dread because he will have to go back there.  He will have to go back again and again because their handlers like him to learn and be useful.  Because they feel he is docile enough to do this without question.

Someday he hopes to be better.  He’ll learn to heal so well that they will never need their creators again.  He hopes his brothers will not come to resent him for what he has to do now.  He prays to whatever might be out there beyond their creators for something to come and change this.

 

He sneaks 0-81 down to see the toddlers and he sees the same shock that was in his own eyes.  9 batches, eight clones each to start.  Already the Kaminoans have taken lives from these precious young brothers.  Nine lives have been snuffed out at their creator’s whim.

0-81 wants to stay with the numerics, but 0-84 tells him they are not allowed.  Their handlers would be furious if they even knew that 0-84 had shown his twin this room. They mumble things about science and harming something.  Harming what?  The children, their brothers?  If that is what their handlers fear they are wrong.  They are not like their handlers.  They could never snuff these tiny lights.

 

They cannot tell the 0-9s about these little brothers.  They are too young to be trusted and their creators would hurt them if they caused trouble.  It is for their own safety that they do not let on what they understand.

\--

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3  
Project Year 3 - Month 8**

The 0-8s meet another person who looks like them.  He is not a clone. He says he is their father’s cousin.  When they can’t understand that he tells them to call him ba’vodu, uncle, he is like a brother to their father.  It is the first contact they have with blood family who is not their brother.  He is angry at their creators.  For the deaths.  He vows to tell their father.

Only weeks later they will meet their father for the first time.

\---

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3  
Project Year 4 - Month 4/5**

The 0-9s have spent a happy year learning and growing.  Now in the middle of the night they are pulled from their beds.

Their creators say they have to go back to the sad place.  They say that they have more growing to do.  They are not sure that they understand.  The 0-8s only had to grow once.  Why are they not fine as they are?

0-84 is there to hold their hands.  Before their eyes close they think they see him cry.

\--

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3  
Project Year 4 - Month 5**

0-81 is furious and 0-84 is not certain if he is even deserving of forgiveness.  He is three years old and he allowed this to happen.  He doesn’t tell this to 0-81.  He only tells him what the scientists have told him.  It is very little.  They like to say it is all simply for science.

He takes the punishment he receives, allowing 0-81 to hit him.  He can take care of himself, but he warns his brother not to strike out at the Kaminoans.  Their handlers would have few qualms over killing them if they thought they were not useful or out of control.  0-84 has read the files.  They have done it before.

Their brothers were barely even a year old.

He tells 0-81 not to let it boil over outside of their little private room.  It’s a statement he has to repeat often, hissing quietly at his brother.  “Careful! _Boil_.”

His brother usually manages to bite back his temper.  One day when they’re talking he realizes.  He doesn’t call his brother by his number anymore.  He calls him Boil.  His brother seems to like it, having a name.  It’s just a small outward sign of his defiance.

\---

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3  
Project Year 4 - Month 10**

It is the worst thing that the 0-9s have ever known. They don’t all come out of the sad place together. The scientists only bring 0-92 and 0-93 back from the sad place to their brothers.  They leave 0-91 and 0-92 longer.  They explain nothing.  Even 0-84 only gets told that it is for science.

0-84 hovers over them.  He takes as much of their care from their creators as he can.  He seems less afraid to be near them now, but he doesn’t smile.  0-81 doesn’t smile as much as he used to either.

\--

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3  
Project Year 4 - Month 11**

0-91 and 0-94 never come back from the sad place.  They die in the same room as so many of their brothers.  They are another layer in the room’s sorrows.

The last month has been difficult.  They day the Kaminoans spirit away the bodies of their dead brothers is worse.

0-92 and 0-93 look fourteen years old; the 0-8s are not so much larger anymore.  They learn something new.  The 0-8s are not their elder brothers despite their apparent age.  They are all only three years old.  Their handlers have always been this way.

‘For Science.’

They learn that they have other brothers.  They learn that this is happening to other brothers too.  They learn the work that 0-84 has been doing.

There is an intense uncomfortable silence in the room.

0-81 looks angry. 0-93 looks shocked as 0-92 feels. 0-84 looks like he’s waiting for someone to start screaming at him, guilt etched into the lines around his eyes; lines which he is too young to have.

0-92 hates seeing his brother like this.  Their creators have done this to all of them.  They’re just using 0-84 like they’re using the rest of them.  He does the only thing he can think of that might break the air of sorrow.

He cracks a joke.  It’s not a very good joke.  It’s not even really that funny a story.  Just something stupid.  He bit his tongue badly once when he was only 2. He had tried calling for the facility medic and it came out medix.  He was shouting that he needed the medical kit, but all he could say was medkix.

“I need medkix! I need medkix.”

And then 0-84 had come to help him.  Just like 0-84 has always tried to help them when they were hurt.

It doesn’t exactly get a laugh.  He decides he’s going to work on that, but he gets a few smiles, remembering the lighter times. 0-81 snorts.

“Med Kix, I like it.” He gives an odd grin at 0-84.  “Sounds just about right for you if I’m Boil.”

“ _Boil No_.” 0-84 groans, but the smirk 0-81 doesn’t fade.

“If I’m Boil then you’re Kix.”

It’s the first time the 0-9s learn it’s possible to have another name.

\--

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3 & 674-5  
Project Year 4 - Month 12**

Some paperwork has come through their creators.  The project is shrinking as far as Kix can understand.  It’s a joyful moment for the Zeros.  The downsizing means that they are moving from facility 674-3 to 674-5 and joining their younger brothers.  There will be no more sneaking around to see them.  All of the brothers will finally be united.

 

The first moment walking into the recreation area in 674-5 is overwhelming.  They knew intellectually what it would mean, but it’s strange to look into a room and see everyone has a face just like yours.  There are so _many_ brothers now.

Standing close to each other 0-92 and 0-93 wish they were a little more different.  In a sea of brothers faces they want to be recognized for themselves.

They decide to make the biggest change that they know how.

It’s a shock to Kix and Boil to walk into the fresher to find two freshly bald young brothers.  One is drawing a symbol onto the other’s head.  It seems that he’s decided to take a leaf from the book of the tattooed zabrack who has visited the facility several times.

The makeshift tattoo looks like a symbol they saw in training.  It represents a republic; a place where people have a voice in their lives.  0-92 tells them he got a look at a file and that he found out one day they’re going to belong in the republic.  He’s marking himself with the promise of one day fighting for that place that might give them a voice of their own.

\--

0-92 uses his newfound voice in his life to differentiate himself further.  He finds he goes searching for a name and stumbles across the name Jesse somewhere online and it just feels right.  His brother’s don’t challenge his choice.

\--

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-5  
Project Year 5 - Month 2**

It was the month that the 0-9s finally found the names that worked for them.  0-92 stumbled across the name Jesse while flipping through information online and took it as his own.  It felt right.  It took a little longer and one chatty little brother for 0-93 to get his name.

“ ‘an that’s when slick said that I looked like a Johnson!”The three year old boy from batch seven grins, finishing his story about how he got a name; then he continues.  “You look like a Waxer. ‘Cause how could your head be shiny all’of’a time if you aren’t usin’ wax on it.”

Boil looks like he’s not sure if he should laugh or go slap Slick.  That kid seems to have been born an asshole.  Waxer seems to make up Boil’s mind for him when he happily accepts the name and he collapses in laughter.

\--

**Kamino, Research Facility 674-3  
Project Year 9 - Month 11**

The most startling revelation for Boil is when he realizes that Kix started the naming trend among their younger brothers as well.

It started with the moment this wild brother, nearly feral but surprisingly whole for his brokenness, nearly bit off his hand like one of the carnivores he had read about and he called him a Wolf.  The youngster wrote it down as Wolffe and used it like a badge of honor.  He only became more fond once he learned what a wolf was.  He never did change the spelling ‘though.

After that there were others. Some took names as young as second growth; some didn’t find themselves until they were teens.  It was all a matter of finding yourself and becoming something more than the number you were born to be. 

Click, Slick, Havoc, Damage, Dogma, Raze, Scion, Comet, Boost, Wolffe, Parsec, Sinker, Tup, Gregor, Hero, Appo, Rex, Cody, Pulsar, Charger, Trap, Redeye, Trip, Void, Johnson, Crews, Eel, Arrow, Tunnel Rat, Scythe, Ridge, RYS, Notch, Tomas, Ox, Frog, Litchen, Edge, Hardcase, Fox, Cheat, Juri, Vix, Droidbait, Heavy, Cutup, Fives, Half-Pint, Echo, and others whose names had been forgotten but the fact that they once lived never would be.

So many of them had died, but they were more than a test.  They were brothers.  All they have been through will not be in vain.


End file.
